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By Charlene Gatt

16th February 2010 11:05:43 AM

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BRAYBROOK College students Linh Nguyen and Jason Bao Tran had 2000 reasons to smile this Lunar New Year’s Eve.

The pair was each presented with a full VCE scholarship from Braybrook’s Quang Minh Temple at Saturday’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.

The $2000 scholarship can be used to cover any school expenses Linh and Jason encounter in their VCE studies.

This year, Quanh Ming also gave out three $500 “part-time” scholarships to female students, funded by the Australian Vietnamese Women’s Association.

Tony Le-Nguyen from the Quang Minh Temple said the temple was keen to help students that had suffered hardship. This is the second year the temple has given out these scholarships.

“Some of these kids are orphans and they show strength and courage to perform under adversity and they participate and help other kids and are involved in a range of extra-curricular activities,” Mr Le-Nguyen said.

“We’re not interested in kids who could be brain surgeons, we’re interested in the kids who really need it. We don’t want to see kids suffer because of their financial situation.”

Linh, who was orphaned at age six, moved to Sunshine from Vietnam. She lives with her grandmother and aunty. She juggles a part-time job with her studies.

This year, the Year 11 student will sit her first Year 12 exam for her accelerated subject, business studies. She hopes to study commerce at Melbourne University.

Last year, she was awarded the prestigious Melbourne University Kwong Lee Dow scholarship.

Jason, also in Year 11, is striving to get an ENTER of 97.9 to get into biomedicine at university. He also is studying an accelerated Year 12 subject, Community Service, and spent part of last year doing volunteer work at the temple.

He moved to the area in 2008 with his sister.

“It’s (the scholarship) an excellent confidence booster,” he said.

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